This Is A Nathan MacKinnon Appreciation Blog
One of the biggest shames in the world is that Nathan MacKinnon was stuck playing on some goddamn horrific Colorado Avalanche teams for half of his career so far. The first year he came into the league, MacKinnon put u 24 goals and 63 points as a rookie. He won the Calder Trophy and the Colorado Avalanche advanced to the playoffs after having the #1 overall pick the summer before and not making the playoffs at all during the previous 3 seasons. But after that first year, the Avs would go on to miss the playoffs for another 3 consecutive years. And in those years, they finished 7th in the Central Division twice and 6th the other time. This was a team who only had 22 wins in the 2016-17 season. So he’s in his 6th year in the league right now but 3 of those seasons were plagued by the Patrick Roy/Matt Duchene/WhatTheFuckIsGoingOnHere era in Colorado. I think everybody knew that Nathan MacKinnon was a stud who was ready to break out in the league, but it was tough for anybody to care about him considering the Avalanche were such a disaster.
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Then last season happened. The Avalanche finally traded Matt Duchene and from there, MacKinnon took the team over. He had 39 goals and 97 points on the year. He went through a stretch of about 9 games where he put up 19 points, with the Avs winning all 9 of those games straight. He took a team with one of the worst records in NHL history the year before and willed them into the playoffs for the 2nd time in his career, and ended up finishing 2nd in Hart Trophy voting at the end of the year. Last night didn’t exactly go Colorado’s way but the team is in the top half of the league, MacKinnon has 11 goals and 11 assists in 15 games, and he notched his 200th career assist in the process. And then, of course, there was this sequence.
What a fucking wizard. At one point in this clip, there are 3 separate Predators who are down on the ice. Granted, MacKinnon got a little help at first from Landeskog taking out Hartman as he entered the zone. Then Subban thinks he’ll be able to dive to take the puck away from Nate The Great, and what a mistake that was. Then Josi decides to take a crack at the MacK Daddy as well, and he ended up looking like a total bozo. MacKinnon has his head up the whole time, canvassing the offensive zone and calculating his options. As far as puck handling and footwork goes, we are watching a top 5 player in the world right here doing what he was put on this Earth to do. That little pivot and step around Josi belongs in every hockey tutorial video for the rest of eternity. Sucks he had to go up against one of the best goalies in the league who didn’t give him much to work with here. But as far as non-goal highlights go? This was sexual.
Sidenote: Think about all of the greats in hockey history. Gretzky, Howe, Lemieux, Orr, etc. Think about all the greats in hockey right now. Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin, etc. Have any of them ever appeared in an episode of Trailer Park Boys? I’ll answer that question for you–no they have not. But has Nathan MacKinnon?
GOAT status.